Selling Classic Raid Runs To Moggers

Today's guest post was written by Keelhaul from the Disenchanting Azeroth blog. If you would like your guest post featured on Power Word: Gold contact us at powerwordgold@gmail.com.

Throwback gear in 4.3 actually breathes new life into throwback gold-making opportunities for experienced players.  The ol' Hand of A'dal vials model for gold-making can be resurrected immediately, and GDKP runs have a new reason for pulling buyers into raids.  Follow us after the jump and start thinking out of the box and applying a gold value to actual bosses, rather than to items.

Help Us Help You

First, the Hand of A'dal model:  If you weren't around in The Burning Crusade, there was a glass ceiling placed on raid progression for a significant period of time.  If you were unsuccessful in Tier 5, raiding Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep, you were not able to progress into Tier 6 and the Black Temple.  Doing so required quest drops off both Vashj and Kael'thas, which meant if you couldn't kill the two of them, you couldn't raid BT.

There was always a significant population of players, however, that navigated this ceiling by paying a hundred to a few thousand gold (which was a lot back then) to experienced raid teams who knew the fights, and they would tag along and pick up their vials for the quest to get attuned to BT.  Experienced raid teams did this week and week out to earn significant amounts of gold for their guild.

So what's the opportunity with the Hand of A'dal run, specifically?  A few facts:

1) It's currently the only way to acquire T5 chest and head pieces for transmogrification.

2) It's currently the only way to acquire the one-of-a-kind models of the Twinblade of the Phoenix, the Nexus Key, the Fang of Vashj, the Lightfathom Scepter and the Serpent Spine Longbow for transmogrification.

3) The majority of players cannot solo these bosses.

4) The majority of pug raids on these bosses fail due to inexperience with the complexity of the fights.

5) The majority of players will likely find these fights time consuming and frustrating compared to content they can solo themselves, enabling these bosses to maintain their gold value over time.

5) Kael'thas offers a potential grand prize of the Ashes of Alar phoenix mount.

6) If your buyers need the T5 head/chest, they will likely also require the other pieces as well which exist in each of the zones you'll be entering.

What Does This Mean?

So what does that mean for gold-makers?

1) First, the Hand of A'dal run isn't the only one you can frame up and sell.  The model will work for other raids that sit at the threshold of too difficult to solo and not difficult enough to warrant an entire guild's focus:  BT, Sunwell, Naxxramas, etc.

2) This opportunity isn't for everyone, and is best suited for raid-minded gold makers who can assemble an experienced A-Team (3-5 players) to hit the content hard and fast, and be willing to carry a few buyers along for the ride.  It's the classic model resurrected to achieve a new set of goals.  If you're a gold-maker that prefers to play the auction house and you rarely raid, then this opportunity is not for you.  Which is further encouragement to the gold makers who ARE experienced raiders, because this is a market in which you will have lesser competition from your AH peers.

3) Your market of big spenders is likely to diminish over time, so assemble your A-Team and start posting it in trade ASAP.  Others will quickly start copying your model, so if you and your team know the fight, have the achievement and you are from top tier guilds on your realm, you will likely differentiate yourselves quickly from the snake oil that will likely flood trade chat.

4) You increase your chances of making additional gold from these collectors if once you've secured them as your buyers, you offer to also clear the other bosses that drop the remaining T5 tokens once you're in the zone.

5) Emphasize that acquiring the gear and weapons will be effortless, all they have to do is tag along because you're the best of the best.

6) Build relationships with the collectors.  You're their escort, and if their item(s) don't drop in the first week, you'll want to have that relationship well established so they become a return customer for week two and onward.  Think customer experience.  This isn't an item you're selling, it's an adventure.

What else can we extrapolate this to?  I suspect we'll see GDKP runs (you can find GDKP in our Gold-Making Glossary) through Sunwell and Black Temple very shortly, where it's not an experienced team of mercenaries that is required, but just one raid leader that has experience with the content and can provide simple enough direction to a raid full of buyers.

Sure, players are already pugging the T6 raids, but the pug runs are likely disorganized with bickering over drops, gold being offered with no system to receive it, ninjas, and early exits.  Trump all the crap with a legitimate offering, and my guess is you'll be surprised at the interest you generate.

But like I said, act fast because while you may experience a reduction in competition from your gold-making peers, I suspect your competition from other experienced raid teams will increase because this sort of approach plays to their strengths as well.  First one to put a legit model forward will win the collectors with deep pockets.

Best of luck out there, and be sure to check out our blog, Disenchanting Azeroth for more great content.

-Keelhaul

Thanks again to Keelhaul for providing this great opportunity for you gold-makers out there who wouldn't mind putting together mogging gear runs for players like me who can't do it on my own and have more gold than patience.

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